"Hopefullness"
Dean AngellApril 5/6, 2008
Hopeless. I think all of us have had that feeling at some point. You’ve had the tenth disagreement for the tenth straight day with your spouse. Hopeless. Or how about this one, when you get a brutal doctor’s report and it really is cancer? Hopeless. When you’ve tried to have a baby for years and it just doesn’t happen. Hopeless. Who here has ever lost money on a business deal? At that moment the “H” word is spilling all over our life. Hopeless.
How about any of you who have addiction issues and you’re good for a while but then you fall off the wagon and you drink again or you do drugs again just that one night. Or, you hit the VLT’s on your way home in a moment of weakness. Hopeless is what you feel. I met a guy the other day who was clean and dry for 6 years and then he fell off the program one night. Boom.
He described the next morning with a whole bunch of words but hopeless was one of them.
What about a marriage coming apart or a daughter or son who you can’t communicate with? Feels pretty hopeless some times doesn’t it? Or how about if you’ve got abuse in your background and it haunts you way more often than you think it should. That feels pretty hopeless.
During every one of those hopeless moments we human beings use the same two words in our minds when we think about our own situations. The words are “I wish.”
(I wish) that would have never happened to me.
(I wish) I would have never got into that business deal.
(I wish) I woulda never taken that first drink.
(I wish) I could get my marriage figured out.
(I wish) we just wouldn’t fight anymore.
(I wish) I didn’t have cancer.
And when we say “I wish” in those terms, well that equals regret.
And I gotta tell you regret is one of the darkest feelings of life. It’s a feeling that is one of the farthest places from Heaven and the farthest place from God you can be.
Jason did a sermon about five weeks ago on the subject of regret in our “Shoulda Coulda Woulda” series. It was an awesome message on how to deal with regrets in our lives. Listen to it. You can find it on the web page.
But let me tell you that this regret “I wish I woulda never done this or that” feeling is a long way from what God ever wants us to be feeling and what I’d like to tell you today is that there is an answer to all the negative “I wish” regret stuff in our lives. The answer comes in understanding one word - and that word is HOPE.
Hope is actually the only thing that we can count on when our lives feel hope – less. So let me tell you the truth about this hope stuff so that we can all have some kinda anchor to tie our lives to when we’re feeling that hopelessness wash over us.
And how I’d like to tell you about hope is kinda personal so I hope that’s okay. I’d like to tell you about hope through my Mom’s life story because my Mom has more reason to get stuck in her past “hopelessness” and “I wish” than most of us. Yet today she is what I would call a hope-filled woman and will be till the day she dies. So let me tell you about how hope begins.
My Mom was born into a family that was pretty unstable. She moved like fifteen times in the first twelve years of her life as her Dad went from job to job to job throughout Canada. Her Dad, my Grandpa, was an alcoholic who became really abusive when he was drinking and he was pretty much always drinking. And because of the crowd that he associated and hung around with, there were just a lot of things a little kid should never have to see let alone endure from physical abuse, to mental abuse as a near daily occurrence, to sexual abuse throughout the entire home.
It got so bad in seasons that when she was a teenager she had to get away from it all and stay with safer relatives who turned out to not be so safe either. That was the first sixteen years of my Mom’s life in a nut shell and it set the stage for what could have been a “hopeless - I wish that stuff had never happened to me” regret and feared filled kinda life. It coulda set the stage for that.
But when my Mom turned sixteen something changed the course of her hopeless life forever. And if you ask her what happened when she was sixteen that changed her life she’ll tell you straight up. She’d say, “I found Jesus or He found me,” but at that point she gave her life and her future hope to follow Jesus.
And if you ask her when the first hopeful feeling she had in her whole life happened, she’d say it was on that day when she gave her life to Jesus that everything changed. And then she’d say Jesus came just in the nick of time.
Romans 5:6 is a verse in the Bible I read two weeks ago at Easter and it had some powerful truth for our lives and it is just as true for my Mom’s story as well.
Romans 5:6 & 8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless,
God demonstrated His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Just at the right time when we are powerless, that’s the moment that Jesus gave his life to save us forever. So, if you’re at a power-less - need some help - kinda place, you’re in the right spot. Keep tuned in. Right before those verses the Apostle Paul said this:
Romans 5:1 & 2b & 5 (NIV)
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and we rejoice in the hope of God. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts.
Just read that over. People, at just the right time when we are hope-less and power-less Christ died for us to give us hope and that kinda hope does not disappoint ever.
You know, there is a verse tucked away – way back in the Bible -in the book of Lamentations and it says this, “The Lord is my portion (strength, enough) therefore I will hope in Him.”
See what my Mom found out at sixteen years old is the secret to where real hope starts. Hope is a spiritual term. It’s not just a human thought or emotion. Hope is when our creator inspires us, at a soul level, with a longer term view of life, death and forever.
Hope is not, “Oh, I’m in a bad situation I better reach down and pull up my bootstraps and get out of this mud,” and get a better attitude. Although, that too is a good thing to do in human terms, but the real power in overcoming hopelessness and powerlessness happens when we engage the power of God inside our lives through faith. That is real hope.
So I guess I wanted to be very clear on where hope starts. Hope isn’t something we just conger up in our minds. No, hope is a decision and it’s actually a spiritual decision to give our lives over to the care of God and to acknowledge that without His power in our lives we are hopeless. He is the only one who can provide real hope.
And so I got thinking about all of you and thought, you know, there are gonna be twelve hundred people here this weekend and there’s gotta be like 10% of us who are feeling a little hopeless for one reason or another and I just wanna speak to that 10% of us for a minute.
If you’re sitting here today and life has kinda just overwhelmed you a bit lately then I would say the same thing to you that my Mom would say. She’d say, “open up your heart to Jesus more than you ever have before”.
Jesus I ask you to give hope in a new way right now to that 10% of us who need you at just the right time to pour your love and power and grace and strength and wisdom into our lives. You are our only hope. Amen. But keep listening.
Let’s talk about how hope can become very practical in our lives. Here’s the trouble with hope. Hope gives you enough energy and enough desire and enough faith to actually tackle all the challenges of life and that’s really good but it’s also really hard. Hope causes you to dream and sometimes dreaming feels dangerous.
Let me read a couple major truths to you that I’ve seen really play out in my life and in my Mom’s life over the last forty years.
Isaiah 40:28-31 (NIV)
The Lord is the everlasting God and He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Lamentations 3:19-23a is written by a guy that had been through tough times:
I remember my affliction and my wandering. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning.
Those verses are full of pretty big juicy spiritual truth and they both say the same things about the reality of hope. Look at the verses from Lamentations. Essentially they are saying when we look back on our lives and start counting all the bad things that have happened to us our spirits get down (verses 19 & 20) but watch where hope kicks in. Instead of that negative focus, if I focus on who God is and what He’s done for me; if I focus on His love and forgiveness and compassion and grace in my life and around my life then I almost automatically have hope. “Yet this I call to mind” and then I have hope. The Lord loves me and He sustains me and He is compassionate and gracious and kind to me, therefore I have hope.
Listen to some verses just ahead of those in Isaiah. Just let this soak in:
Isaiah 40: 12-15 (describing God)
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, or with the breadth of His hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who has understood the mind of the Lord, or instructed Him as His counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten Him, and who taught Him the right way? Who was it that taught Him knowledge or showed Him the path of understanding? Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
I love these verses because they remind us of who God is, and you know what? He is infinitely greater than I usually see Him as. He is infinitely smarter than I think He is. He is way stronger and faster and enduring than I give Him credit for and He does not grow tired even once of walking beside me and loving me and caring for me and forgiving me and helping me and He doesn’t get drained by loving me – not for one minute – not even once.
Isaiah 40:28b, 29-31
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak and those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
So I could just stand up here and say “don’t be down about your life. Put your hope in God” and walk away. That really is the truth; our hope is in God alone and it can’t be just in our self. That’s not hope, but may be the start of a good attitude. Hope starts with a very big God. I could just say that and go on - that would be easy preaching - but it’s not too practical. I mean, next time you need hope to overcome things in your life you might need more than just “trust God” as your answer. I get that. Let me be very practical.
So here’s what I’ve done in my life and I’ve watched my Mom do too in order to make hope become practical when those waves of hopelessness sweep over us. Here are three quick things; not rocket science but it is a recipe for hope.
1. Get with God every day because when you get with God you get to know God and when you get to know God then as Isaiah said you begin to understand how big and strong and able God is. When you understand that then you have Hope automatically; hope that whatever you’re facing is just not that big a job for the guy who created the world and holds the universe together and who loves you beyond measure.
One thing I have consistently watched my Mom do in her life is spend time with God, like every day. She knows who God is and she trusts Him to continue to heal her and she trusts Him for the future because she’s with Him everyday. That’s how to live with growing hope in the face of a terrible past or a future that isn’t as bright as we would like it to be.
You know, nearly every day as I spend time with God I read a bit about Him and about who He is and what He does from the Bible – a remarkable book - and then I write down prayers that remind me of God’s strength and mercy and endurance and grace and wisdom and then I thank Him for standing in the gap between me and my challenges or between me and my difficulties or between me and my past or between me and my sin. Every time I remind myself about who God is and what He does - every time I do that - I have hope because the truth is God is bigger than anything I face ever and therefore I have hope.
People, do you want to have hope? To be practical, buy a journal, go and sit for 20 minutes with God and read Isaiah 40 and see who God is and write down some hope-filled prayers. You’ll be surprised at the hope that seeps into your life.
Here is the second practical part of walking towards hope; we’re almost done:
2) Count your blessings. You know there is something very powerful and profound that happens when we simply look for the good around us in our lives especially when we are facing hard times or adversity or negative stressful situations or when hopelessness creeps into our world. I have consistently found that during those seasons in particular the antidote for hopelessness is to be very intentional about seeing what blessings are in your life as well as the tough stuff.
Colossians 3:15 says this:
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and be thankful.”
When we focus on all the good that God is doing in and around us we can’t help but be thankful.
So last week our family flew to Toledo Ohio, to our new city, and we looked at like forty houses and we saw a lot of the area and we met like fifteen hundred people for the first time. Crazy. In the middle of all that we got kinda tired and started to grumble. We couldn’t find the right house. It wasn’t one like ours. The schools felt different, the hockey rink was different, and the church was different. We started getting down, kinda sad and feeling sorry for ourselves. What are we doing? And then I started just reminding all of us of all the good around us: people have been welcoming, people have been gracious and kind, people have been patient, the restaurants were great, our house will be bigger and newer for lots less money (that’s cool), the church feels so much like Lakeview, and we’re gonna get a dog (a bargaining chip.) And soon as all that started to flow and we got a little bit thankful, all of a sudden hope filled us up again.
People, lift up your eyes from the mud you think you might be walking through because beside you there are open fields and fresh flowers and fresh breezes blowing. There is good all around so stop and look and count your blessings and be thankful. That’s where hope comes from.
Here’s the third and last practical part to walking towards hope and it’s kinda connected.
3) Seize the moments today as every moment has a bit of heaven and eternity wrapped up in it. I think we really do forget sometimes how involved God wants to be and is in the world around us and I think we forget that He provided that extra nice smiley person we saw as we walked in here today and I think we forget sometimes how great a city we get to live in and how amazing and free this country of Canada is, and I think I forget how great my kid’s hockey coach really is or that Kashe’s teacher made his day on Friday. I think we forget to respond to a moment of sunshine or a couple extra minutes of rest at a red light or the warm breezes spring is gonna blow in tomorrow or to that hug we got from someone who loves us.
I just think we forget to seize the moments of hope God is sprinkling all through our days every day all the time and those moments are everywhere. So often we get so caught up in our own little worlds and in our busyness in our confused little lives that we forget to just lift up our eyes and look at the dozens of things every moment that God is providing for us. Amazing.
Take a breath, think about your wife, think about your Mom, think about your friends, think about your home, or your car or your favorite restaurant and then realize with every breath and every second and every moment God is providing hope for you.
Seize these moments people. Lift up your eyes because as you do hope will pour into your life.
